Interactive Language Arts

Alternative Resources for Flipping Your Lessons

Scott — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:33:11 +0000

As I have learned more about the Flipped Classroom and as I have searched for smart, innovative ways to practice these methods, I’ve been a little disappointed. I do like the idea that flipped lessons enable teachers to better differentiate their instruction and hone focus on mastering skills, but it seems those who are leading this movement are focusing mostly on science and math to the neglect of the humanities and language arts in particular. Khan Academy and at The Flipped Class Network, for example, have countless math and science videos but very few that are useful to us in the humanities. Given this lack of resources for language and lit, I came up with some alternative sources you might consider if you want to try flipping your middle or high school language arts lessons. Some easily overlooked places you might find these useful videos (often referred to as “vodcasts” or “webcasts) include free online course materials, collections of author webcasts, or presentation lectures like TED talks. The key is to find short, highly-engaging content to deliver online, outside the classroom, so students will arrive in class prepared to master the content with your guidance. I’ve linked some good stuff below. Please send me links if you find flipped classroom resources worth sharing. You might also look for good content on college or university websites, museum websites, and websites for libraries. For more reading about the Flipped Classroom, check out my recent post on the topic.

Author Webcasts and Reading

Free Online Course Lectures

Critical Analysis of Literature

Arizona State University

Lectures / Presentations

TED Talks (Specifically Language Arts Related)

Flipping your Classroom

Scott — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:32:43 +0000

I have been hearing a lot lately about the “flipped” classroom. If you haven’t heard about it yet, Holly Epstein Ojalvo and Shannon Doyne of the New York Times provide a succinct definition: “an ‘inverted’ teaching structure in which instructional content is delivered outside class, and engagement with the content – skill development and practice, projects and the like – is done in class, under teacher guidance and in collaboration with peers.”
It all started when a couple of teachers started recording their lectures and posting them as Power Points on the net for students who were absent. And that is the essence of it really. You provide content for the students to access outside the classroom and structured exploratory activities and lessons based on that content in the classroom. This “flips” the teacher’s role from class lecturer (information provider) to class guide through activities based on the pre-assigned content.
Instead of viewing this as a total approach, I think both the “flipped” and the “traditional” classrooms are important tools of teaching. Good teachers don’t use only one approach; instead, they create and adapt according to the needs of individual students and according to the needs of the class as a whole. Whether you think this is a total solution or not, one thing is certain…when you “flip” your lessons, access to good technology resources is essential.
So I’ve been searching for some resources to help teachers get started with “flipped” lessons, and here is a good one: The New York Times’ Learning Network: Five Ways to Flip Your Classroom with the New York Times. You can begin with a simple article related to what you are teaching, assign students to read it before class, and then build activities and discussion for the following day during class.

In the Classroom
The NY Times also has a great flipped lesson on the Shakespeare authorship issue. This lesson asks students to “interpret their assigned comparison or reference, drawing on background knowledge and context clues” from a series of articles all of which mention a Shakespeare character. Give each group different (opposing views) articles to take home and read beforehand. Let students know that when they return to class, they will be debating the multiple opinions about the Shakespeare authorship issue. Be sure to introduce the criteria for evaluation and the expectations ahead of time too. When the students return, your role is now flipped from providing information to guiding them through the process of forming their own ideas and opinions about important issues—higher level thinking skills.

Here are a few more resources for getting started with the flipped classroom approach. Enjoy! —Scott

BBC’s ‘State of Debate’ Game Worth Playing in the Classroom

Scott — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:26:37 +0000

For a while I have been hesitant to write about games in education. I think it’s the old-school teacher in me. Or, maybe it’s the stigma attached to electronic games in school based on the common assumption that they present distractions from and not opportunities for meaningful learning. But recent research suggests otherwise. In fact, a 2009 MIT study suggests well-designed educational games are valuable tools for developing skills in communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and even innovation. Unfortunately, many educational games only present rote learning—repetition of addition and subtraction, for example. But some games are designed to encourage and support critical thinking. The BBC’s “State of Debate” is such a game. It is very well-designed, it is interactive, and it encourages students to think critically about persuasive arguments. Even hardened critics among us will see this one is a game worth playing in school.

In the classroom
In “State of Debate,” students are presented with a futuristic society where they must face problem situations that require the application of persuasive language skills. It would be very easy to connect this game to lessons about Aristotelian proofs–ethos, pathos, and logos. The more rhetorically skilled students become, the better they can “talk” themselves out of trouble. Another engaging element of the game is that the problems presented are specifically designed to engage teens with topics like dress code ethics and individuality.

If you are like me, you’ve been hesitant to use electronic games in the classroom, but maybe it’s time to try something new. “State of Debate” is an excellent game to get you started. I think you’ll be surprised by how effective games can be at supplementing your traditional instruction.

Enjoy! –Scott

To read more about games in education, check out these links:
Social Gaming is Improving Education by Greg Ferenstein
Let the Games Begin by Jenn Shreve (Edutopia)
A New Role for Video Games in Education by Kara Miller

Take “The Brainstormer” for a Spin

Scott — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:09:48 +0000

A small group of aspiring authors from among my students just started an after-school creative writers’ club. They meet bi-weekly to share ideas, to collaborate, and to encourage each other to write. So the gathering of this new group got me wondering…what kind of cool resources are online for students interested in creative writing? After a little digging around I found a fun application called “The Brainstormer” created by graphic artist and illustrator Andrew Bosley. The Brainstormer, a simple but innovative tool, is comprised of a set of three wheels that you spin virtually by clicking the center for random ideas about things like conflict, setting, and character to spark the imagination. You can also select ideas manually by moving each wheel to a desired topic. This application is also available through the iTunes App Store for $1.99 so students can download it to their iPhones, iPods, and iPads. This version is customizable, but there is no Android App version yet. The creator says on his Facebook page that he hopes to have one soon.

In the Classroom
Dozens of ideas can be mixed into countless combinations to inspire your students’ stories or poems. This could also be a lot of fun for journal prompts. Have students give the wheel a “spin” and write for a few minutes about whatever comes up.

More resources for creative writing to come…

–Scott

Use Online Newspapers to Meet Common Core Standards

Scott — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:53:53 +0000

Common Core Standards, Informational Texts, Key Ideas and Details:

2. Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text

Online editions of many local, national, and world newspapers are a great place to find resources for teaching students to analyze informational texts for central ideas and how they are shaped. In fact, many newspapers now dedicate an entire section to providing teachers with ways to use the news in the classroom and some even offer alignment to standards. A quick Google search will help you find your local newspaper’s NEI (newspapers in education) section. If your local paper doesn’t have a specific focus for lesson planning, many of the most popular national newspapers do. Among them, The New York Times has an impressive collection of resources for using their newspaper in the classroom as does USA Today.
In the Classroom
Use online newspapers as an opportunity for students to collaborate in their discussion about the central ideas in articles and editorials. Encourage them to express their own opinions in contrast and comparison to those they discover in the news. One simple way to do this is to create a Google Document and have students share their ideas with you and each other by editing that document with their own paragraph responses to assigned articles. Better yet, consider setting up a classroom blog at Edublogs and have students post their responses on your blog. I’ve included a list of links below to a few newspapers that offer lesson plans and other ways to integrate the news into your curriculum.
Whatever use you find for online newspaper is education, it is a good idea to focus on collaboration and problem-solving as a way to integrate technology effectively.
–Scott

USA Today
http://usatodayeducate.com/wordpress/index.php/lesson-library-language-arts

New York Times
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/

LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/services/newspaper/times-in-education/

PBS News Hour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/

Wall Street Journal
http://classroomedition.com/cre/

Parade
http://www.parade.com/paradeclassroom/index.html

Teach Students to Use the Power of Images with Worlde, Creatly, and Statworld

Scott — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:23:17 +0000

The other day a student stood in the middle of my classroom holding his cellphone at arm’s length, pointing it at the white board. I was about to tell him to put it away, but then I realized what he was doing and it gave me pause to think…he was “taking notes” by snapping a digital picture of what I had written on the board. So I wondered, what if I asked him to use those images in his next essay? Isn’t this a way to integrate technology into the language arts curriculum—taking digital pictures and using them with text?
But really, when is the last time you asked your students to include images in their essays? Probably never, right? When students include pictures, it’s usually to adorn the cover of the essay beneath one of those annoying plastic report covers. But consider how many images the average student encounters in a day. Advertisements, all with images meant to persuade, appear everywhere from the internet and television to billboards and buses on the way to school. Images in ads even appear while they are texting or playing Angry Birds on their smart phones. As Louise Story of the NY Times points out, “Anywhere the eye can see, it’s likely to see and ad” and those ads are loaded with images. So shouldn’t we be teaching our students to interpret those images as part of a symbol system the way we teach them to decode letters and words? Better still, what about teaching them to use images themselves in powerful ways?
In the Classroom
Next time you design a writing assignment, consider teaching students how images can be used along with words to persuade. You can have them search for and choose images that will support the theses of their essays. For this, a Google Images search will garner millions of options. You might also have them create their own images and/or “infographics.” Worlde is a simple and fun text analysis tool that will create a word collage based on the frequency of words in any document. Students can upload an essay and Worlde will create an image that emphasizes the essay’s main idea. Also, Stat Silk is great for creating images to represent statistics. Creatly is another nice one, though the free version is limited. I hope you are inspired by these resources to try something new…

–Scott

Commit to Trying New Methods on Digital Learning Day

Scott — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:23:17 +0000

If you have been teaching for a long time, making changes can be difficult and even intimidating. Sometimes it’s easier to close the door to the classroom and do what you have always done instead of worrying about whatever next “big thing” is coming along. Things, after all, are always changing and maybe it’s impossible to keep up with it all.
But today technology is significantly impacting how our students engage and process information more than ever. Consider how in the last decade our chalkboards have been replaced with LCD projectors and smart boards. Grade books are accessible by students and parents online 24/7, graphing calculators are now available as downloadable apps on smart phones, and students communicate in a dozen different ways using as many different modes of technology from email and texting to Facebook, chat, and Skype. Textbooks, magazines, novels and newspapers are no longer limited to the paper and ink media of the past several centuries. In 2011 Amazon announced that digital eBooks for their popular e-reader, the Kindle, outsold hardcover books at a rate of 105 eBooks for every 100 printed books.
But where do you begin? How do you get started without getting overwhelmed? My suggestion–begin with just one new thing each month, starting on February 1, 2012. February 1st is Digital Learning Day which organizers call “a culminating event in a year-round national awareness campaign to improve teaching and learning for all children.” It is an important opportunity to commit to trying something new—especially if you’ve been slow to change. Begin with small steps—explore some of the many ideas on the DLD website, and commit to it by joining the Digital Learning Day movement.
In the Classroom
Take one project students might traditionally have used a poster board to complete and instead have them create an online poster with Glogster. Glogster is a fee and easy tool to use online to create visual displays using graphics. You can start from scratch or use a template. This is one of the many ideas you’ll find at DigitalLearningDay.org. I’ve included a link to a Glogster tutorial from YouTube below.

–Scott

Diigo: A Powerful, Hands-On Research Tool for Students and Teachers

Scott — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:30:45 +0000

Informational Texts Common Core Standard #1 – Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Remember back when we were in school and research meant pouring over books in the library with a stack of note cards? When I was in college, I became very handy with Post-it® notes and multi-colored highlighters for finding “textual evidence.” I miss those days hunched over a notebook amid piles of old books. I loved rolling up my sleeves and immersing myself in the physical work of learning.
Students seldom set foot in brick-and-mortar libraries for research anymore, and they rarely flip through actual paper books or periodicals either. Most research is done with electronic resources now, and I don’t know any current students who know what a library card catalog looks like (you know, the ones with the long, narrow drawers full of 3×5 index cards).
It might seem like the advent of technology has meant the loss of the hands-on element of research and in some ways it has. However, I think there still can be (and should be) a tactile component to the process. That’s what I love about the online application Diigo…it’s a perfect research tool for the 21^st Century, one that allows students to highlight, clip, annotate, organize, and even collaborate…on the internet. It’s a modern tool for rolling up the sleeves and getting busy with research. It even features virtual sticky notes you can “pin” to the screen for review later.
In The Classroom
A very important skill students must develop for 21st Century college and careers is collaborative problem solving, so try using Diigo’s groups feature. First, install the free Diigo toolbar in your and your students’ browsers (I recommend Chrome or Firefox). Next, create groups and add students to the groups. This works best when you have all of the students in the classroom or computer lab with you. As the students in your groups locate useful resources while logged in to Diigo, they can highlight them, post notes about them, bookmark them, and then share these notes and resources quickly and easily with everyone else in the group. Diigo is one of the best collaborative research tools on the web and students using it can’t forget their work at home because it’s all in one place—all accessible from any device connected to the internet. The video below has more. Check it out…
–Scott

Bring Shakespeare to Old Time Radio–Common Core Standard 9

Scott — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:33:38 +0000

Most students are probably not aware that copyright protection laws are relatively new, so they might be surprised to learn just how many famous authors like Shakespeare borrowed and adapted others’ ideas. They should already know (I hope) that Stephanie Meyer’s books aren’t entirely original vampire stories, but they probably don’t know how many earlier “versions” of Romeo and Juliet you can find.

Common Core Standard 9. Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

Although there are many authors who treat themes and topics from earlier works in their own, Shakespeare is one of the easiest to approach with students simply because one can find more information online about him than nearly any other author. If you are lucky enough to have one-to-one technology with your students, the online Shakespeare editions are countless, and many include interactive elements like those in the Interactive Romeo and Juliet text.

In the Classroom
An excellent lesson plan for exploring Shakespeare’s source material is “Pyramis and Thisbe, Page to Stage” at the Folger Library site where students can learn about the ways that Shakespeare used both themes and actual plots from earlier work by Ovid. In this hands-on lesson students not only consider Shakespeare’s use of Ovid, they also decide if Ovid’s story works better as a tragedy like Romeo and Juliet or as a comedy like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and they create their own dramatic scenes.
Effective Tech integration is all about developing problem solving skills, so why not present your students with a challenging twist to this lesson: have them write a script for radio. B-SideRadio.org has great tutorials for creating a radio broadcast and it would also be fun to explore Old Time Radio broadcasts like those at OTR.net. Limiting their artistic expressions to audio recordings will challenge students who are used to the highly visual culture of the 21^st century to consider alternative modes of expression. Audacity is a powerful, free, cross-platform application useful for creating and editing recordings. The possibilities are endless, which is what makes integrating technology fun. Enjoy!

–Scott

Blending Art, Literature, and Problem Solving at the J. Paul Getty Museum

Scott — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:08:25 +0000

Common Core Standard 7 for Reading presents teachers with many possibilities for mixing all kinds of art forms with literature. Music, photography, painting, sculpture, and many other media are easily brought into the classroom today because of the internet…the important thing is to use these resources heuristically.

7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).

Teaching students to analyze subjects or scenes in comparative forms gives us an opportunity to explore with them the traditions of storytelling—the many and various ways stories can be told and have been told throughout history. Poetry, short stories, plays, and even novels and epic tales have important connections to art and present new, thoughtful ways to analyze and evaluate themes.
To start, you might explore the J. Paul Getty Museum’s “Telling Stories in Art” website where you will find a wide variety of art to connect to literature as well as lesson plans and other resources. The Getty Museum’s stated goal here directly supports standard seven: “To build students’ awareness of how stories can be told visually and how artists use color, line, gesture, composition, and symbolism to tell a story.” These lessons encourage students to think critically about how writers use particular elements to tell stories compared to how artists tell stories similarly but with different elements such as color, line, and gesture.

In the Classroom
Though it is listed for grades 6-8, the lesson titled “Painting Europa” is especially useful for our purposes of meeting standard seven. Integrating technology effectively means teaching students to apply it heuristically—to discover ideas and to solve problems. Try approaching the lesson with students this way: Tell students to imagine they are editors for an online, multimedia textbook that will include an illustration for a selection from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Two paintings are being considered. Students must submit their choices along with a brief explanation as to why the chosen painting best illustrates the selection. Expand further by having them also choose music to accompany the selection. You might pair them and have each team create a wiki with the chosen text, images, and music. Try wikispaces…it’s an excellent tool for online classroom collaboration.
I hope you find the resources at the J. Paul Getty Museum and at Wikispaces useful. Standard seven is one we can easily revisit often and technology affords us the ability to make each activity meaningful and beneficial to our students.

Enjoy,

Scott